How and Where to Publish Your Ebooks - Page 4

Scott Nicholson · 04-29-2010, 12:27 PM

Hi Ernest, are those outlets that are selling Kai Lung Raises His Voice doing well? I am in Kindle, Mobipocket and Smashwords but always looking to expand audiences.

pdurrant · 04-30-2010, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott Nicholson

are those outlets that are selling Kai Lung Raises His Voice doing well? I am in Kindle, Mobipocket and Smashwords but always looking to expand audiences.

Well, Bearing in mind that it's not been available for the same time everywhere:

Kindle: 4 copies
Lightning Source: none
Lulu: 2 copies

Sigh...

On the plus side, the paper copies have been selling OK. They have been available for a bit longer:

Amazon US: 23 copies
Amazon UK: 9 copies

Hopefully some reviews will appear soon, which may encourage sales.

GlenBarrington · 05-01-2010, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by M T McGuire

With you all the way! DRM is pants and pointless and as a user, I hate it with a passion, I would feel thoroughly hypocritical foisting it on my own readers. The only reason I can see, for having that kind of meanness of spirit with your ideas is because they are drying up. There are plenty more where mine came from so...

Do you guys feel this is true for technical publications as well or does this apply mostly to fiction and literature? I'm about 60% of the way through a training manual for a highly specialized computer software.

Knowledgable people in this occupational area are in VERY high demand and due to the high cost of just buying the software, there is almost no 3rd party support for training. And few opportunities for self learning.

I'm thinking that modestly priced training materials would be useful for small to mid-sized companies who have spent all their budget on software acquisition and don't have enough money left in the budget to train all their employees.

Will I be giving my knowledge away if there is no DRM in this case? It would seem to me that without protection of some sort, I will be not only destroying any profits from book sales, but reducing the value of my own expertise in this field by creating people capable of doing my job.

Any thoughts on this sort of situation?

Teyrnon · 05-01-2010, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Any thoughts on this sort of situation?

Well, it seems like you'd be competing with O'Reilly and they sell their ebooks DRM-free.

GlenBarrington · 05-01-2010, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teyrnon

Well, it seems like you'd be competing with O'Reilly and they sell their ebooks DRM-free.

No I wouldn't. If O'reilly sold a title for this software, I wouldn't have started writing it. But I didn't know that their ebooks were DRM free, clearly I need to understand ebook publishing better. I'm beginning to suspect writing the book is going to be the easy part.

Teyrnon · 05-01-2010, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

No I wouldn't. If O'reilly sold a title for this software, I wouldn't have started writing it. But I didn't know that their ebooks were DRM free, clearly I need to understand ebook publishing better. I'm beginning to suspect writing the book is going to be the easy part.

You might want to take a look at http://openp2p.com/lpt/a/3015 for one publisher's view on the subject.

pdurrant · 05-01-2010, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I'm beginning to suspect writing the book is going to be the easy part.

Writing a book is hard. But yes, selling the book after writing it is harder!

Making it available for people to buy, however, is getting easier and easier.

MV64 · 05-07-2010, 01:43 PM

Anyone know where I could sell history e-books? I looked on smashwords but it seems they don't have a category for non-fiction history, just historical fiction.

M T McGuire · 05-07-2010, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MV64

Anyone know where I could sell history e-books? I looked on smashwords but it seems they don't have a category for non-fiction history, just historical fiction.

Click on the bit in the border at the top of each page on Smashwords that says "Comments/questions/customer support? Click here!" and ask them, if they don't add it, they'll take the time to explain why and suggest how you could get round it. I'm very impressed with them, they take ideas on board and are quick to reply to queries or requests for help.

Cheers

MTM

Jake_Drake · 05-29-2010, 05:46 AM

I can't say enough about how helpful Smashwords.com is about helping new authors to get their books published as ebooks and get onto all the various ereaders. If not for Smashwords I would still be writing my stories strictly for myself. They were the first I found out about and the best I still have found.

Until February of this year I was only writing for me - now my ebooks are reaching people all over the globe and I have gotten very good feedback/reviews from quite a few people who purchased my ebooks on Smashwords.

Thanks to Mark Coker for all he's done in helping out the newbie author.

neilmarr · 05-29-2010, 06:02 AM

On the DRM question, Cory Doctorow (a hero) summed it up in a borrowed quote from elsewhere in a talk recently: "The problem for an independent author isn't piracy; it's obscurity." Cheers. Neil

A_J_Lath · 06-08-2010, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake_Drake

I can't say enough about how helpful Smashwords.com is about helping new authors to get their books published as ebooks and get onto all the various ereaders. If not for Smashwords I would still be writing my stories strictly for myself. They were the first I found out about and the best I still have found.

Until February of this year I was only writing for me - now my ebooks are reaching people all over the globe and I have gotten very good feedback/reviews from quite a few people who purchased my ebooks on Smashwords.

Thanks to Mark Coker for all he's done in helping out the newbie author.

With you on that one. I've recently put my ebook up on smashwords, and yesterday had the good news that it's been accepted for the premium catalogue - which will lead to distribution via Amazon, Apple, Sony etc.

Personally, I think Smashwords is going places. My advice to anyone who has written an ebook is to get it onto Smashwords pronto, before the place gets too popular, so that your book isn't swamped by (as yet) too many submissions.

CyberCrone · 06-28-2010, 01:07 AM

Just to agree and underscore what Winter said. While considering how I wanted to go about selling my ebooks, I read a lot of commentary on whether to use DRM or not, and Winter has laid out the overall consensus very well. I'll just add the comment, look what has happened to music because of DRM. Everybody hates it, and software that removes DRM from videos and music is big business. The music industry shot itself in the foot.

Matthew Malone · 07-08-2010, 05:53 PM

I'm fairly annoyed that all these places force authors to use their (the ebook sites') conversion processes, which are normally pretty subpar. I have a professionally formatted ebook that I put quite alot of effort into with InDesign, then also tweaked the formatting on the ePub and MOBI in Oxygen, and I get onto these sites like Smashwords and Feedbooks and they want .doc files and copy paste text. I guess this is in part to cater to people who don't have the knowledge to design a book, and/nor the software, as well as needing to maintain a common formatting style for everything on their sites. But it is frustrating. Are there no sites that allow authors to publish their own formating that follows all the technical guidelines for PDF, ePub, and MOBI? gigapedia is the only site I know of. I'm going to crawl through the ebook Architects and try to find some there.

jaxx6166 · 07-08-2010, 06:02 PM

I think LuLu has a WYSIWYG editor, but they force to ePub or PDF. You may be able to squeeze it onto amazon with your formatting, but I'm not too sure about that...

AJ, I didn't know you were here. I just saw your book at SW yesterday

04-29-2010, 12:27 PM	#46
Scott Nicholson Scott Nicholson, author Posts: 363 Karma: 2029337 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Boone NC Device: Kindle	good outlets? Hi Ernest, are those outlets that are selling Kai Lung Raises His Voice doing well? I am in Kindle, Mobipocket and Smashwords but always looking to expand audiences.

05-29-2010, 06:02 AM	#56
neilmarr neilmarr Posts: 7,215 Karma: 6000059 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Monaco-Menton, France Device: sony	On the DRM question, Cory Doctorow (a hero) summed it up in a borrowed quote from elsewhere in a talk recently: "The problem for an independent author isn't piracy; it's obscurity." Cheers. Neil Attached Images

07-08-2010, 05:53 PM	#59
Matthew Malone Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 414 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: none	I'm fairly annoyed that all these places force authors to use their (the ebook sites') conversion processes, which are normally pretty subpar. I have a professionally formatted ebook that I put quite alot of effort into with InDesign, then also tweaked the formatting on the ePub and MOBI in Oxygen, and I get onto these sites like Smashwords and Feedbooks and they want .doc files and copy paste text. I guess this is in part to cater to people who don't have the knowledge to design a book, and/nor the software, as well as needing to maintain a common formatting style for everything on their sites. But it is frustrating. Are there no sites that allow authors to publish their own formating that follows all the technical guidelines for PDF, ePub, and MOBI? gigapedia is the only site I know of. I'm going to crawl through the ebook Architects and try to find some there. Last edited by Matthew Malone; 07-08-2010 at 06:03 PM.

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05-07-2010, 01:43 PM	#53
MV64 Addict Posts: 271 Karma: 2000000 Join Date: Jan 2009 Device: Sony PRS-505	Anyone know where I could sell history e-books? I looked on smashwords but it seems they don't have a category for non-fiction history, just historical fiction.

05-29-2010, 05:46 AM	#55
Jake_Drake Enthusiast Posts: 27 Karma: 30000 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Olympia, WA Device: Kindle	I can't say enough about how helpful Smashwords.com is about helping new authors to get their books published as ebooks and get onto all the various ereaders. If not for Smashwords I would still be writing my stories strictly for myself. They were the first I found out about and the best I still have found. Until February of this year I was only writing for me - now my ebooks are reaching people all over the globe and I have gotten very good feedback/reviews from quite a few people who purchased my ebooks on Smashwords. Thanks to Mark Coker for all he's done in helping out the newbie author.

06-28-2010, 01:07 AM	#58
CyberCrone Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: none	Just to agree and underscore what Winter said. While considering how I wanted to go about selling my ebooks, I read a lot of commentary on whether to use DRM or not, and Winter has laid out the overall consensus very well. I'll just add the comment, look what has happened to music because of DRM. Everybody hates it, and software that removes DRM from videos and music is big business. The music industry shot itself in the foot.

07-08-2010, 06:02 PM	#60
jaxx6166 Wizard Posts: 1,222 Karma: 769316 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Eternal summer Device: 350, iPad, PW	I think LuLu has a WYSIWYG editor, but they force to ePub or PDF. You may be able to squeeze it onto amazon with your formatting, but I'm not too sure about that... AJ, I didn't know you were here. I just saw your book at SW yesterday

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